Stock Market & Financial Investment News

Align Technology announces $70M accelerated share repurchase program Align Technology announced that it has entered into an accelerated stock repurchase agreement (ASR) with Goldman, Sachs & Co. (GS) to repurchase $70M of Align's common stock as part of Align's three-year, $300M stock repurchase program announced on April 23.

Overstock.com market-riggin case to proceed Overstock.com (OSTK) announces that due to the California Supreme Court's decision last week not to review a lower appellate court ruling, relevant discovery materials gained in its long-fought battle with Goldman Sachs (GS) and Merrill Lynch (BAC) will be released to the public, and it will be proceeding to trial against Merrill Lynch. In a suit filed in 2007, Overstock.com alleged certain brokerages engaged in illegal market manipulation in a deliberate effort to manipulate Overstock.com's share prices. Over many years and millions of dollars of discovery generating millions of documents, it fashioned its case against some of the premier brokerages on Wall Street. As was previously disclosed in a filing with the SEC in December 2010, Overstock.com entered into a settlement with certain other defendants in the aggregate amount of $4.44M, the terms of which are confidential. In January 2012, a California trial court decided that relevant portions of the voluminous discovery records regarding Goldman and Merrill should be made public, but dismissed the case on narrow, technical grounds. Last week's decision by the California Supreme Court not to review the appellate court ruling means that the process for public release of information gathered through the discovery process may now proceed, and also the trial against Merrill Lynch. Overstock SVP and General Counsel Mark Griffin added, "It is unfortunate the Court has decided that, despite the substantial evidence against Goldman Sachs, due to jurisdictional grounds they cannot be made to account for it in a California courtroom. Overstock looks forward to making that evidence available to the public for review, and we can't wait to get Merrill Lynch in front of a jury, and let them decide what to do about these manipulative stock market abuses."

Fed extends capital surcharge for SiFi banks comment period to April 3The Federal Reserve extended until April 3 the comment period for its proposed rule to implement capital surcharges for the largest, most systemically important U.S. bank holding companies. The Fed extended the comment period to allow interested persons more time to analyze the issues and prepare their comments. Originally, comments were due by March 2. The proposed rule would establish a methodology to identify whether a firm is a global systemically important banking organization and would also establish the size of a firm's risk-based capital surcharge. The proposal is designed to further strengthen the capital positions of these institutions. Large U.S. banks include Bank of America (BAC), Citi (C), Goldman Sachs (GS), JPMorgan (JPM), Morgan Stanley (MS), U.S. Bancorp (USB) and Wells Fargo (WFC).

Banks probed for possible rigging of precious metals markets, WSJ reportsOfficials in the U.S. are investigating at least 10 major banks for potential rigging of precious-metals markets, sources tell The Wall Street Journal. The DOJ's antitrust unit are investigating the price-setting process for gold, silver, palladium and platinum in London, while the CFTC has begun a civil investigation, with both agencies making requests for information, including a subpoena to HSBC (HSBC) from the CFTC. According to a source, Credit Suisse (CS), JP Morgan (JPM), UBS (UBS), Societe Generale (SCGLY), Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS), Barclays (BCS), Goldman Sachs (GS) and Deutsche Bank (DB) are also under investigation. Reference Link